


Strangler Fig

by galacticabyss



Series: White Hair, Red Cape [1]
Category: Dream SMP - Fandom, Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Body Horror, Elder Guardian Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Gen, Ghost Wilbur Soot, Graphic Description of Corpses, Hearing Voices, Hurt No Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, Memory Alteration, Parent Phil Watson (Video Blogging RPF), Piglin Hybrid Technoblade (Video Blogging RPF), Piglin Hybrid Wilbur Soot, Psychological Horror, Recovery, References to Ancient Greek Religion & Lore, Spooky, Technoblade-centric (Video Blogging RPF), Twins Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot and Technoblade and TommyInnit are Siblings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:40:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 21,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29495970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/galacticabyss/pseuds/galacticabyss
Summary: Sir Billium had been a good vassal for the Egg, and one good turn always deserves another. Decades after the fact, the Egg finds a descendent and promises to keep him safe.Whether he wants it or not.Title from a song of the same name by The Crane Wives
Relationships: Wilbur Soot & Technoblade, Wilbur Soot & Technoblade & Phil Watson
Series: White Hair, Red Cape [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2170197
Comments: 106
Kudos: 473





	1. Prelude

The Egg is patient, it had to be. Nothing came quick for it, and time passed so slowly for it while it waited for its next meal. Sir Billiam was one of its favorite caretakers. Always making sure it was fed, even if the strange piglin had some invisible rules that only made him feed it what he considered poor people. But it was fed, and that is what mattered in the end.

Years had passed since that time, where it was stored in the basement of a grand mansion, and Billiam's line had dispersed to the winds and it was alone again. It was okay though, the Egg knew that it would soon get more followers. And that it would no longer have to rely on stray animals coming a little too close to the entrance to the cave where it was.

And, just as expected. People came pouring in, accidentally of course but most good things happened on accident as well. They called it The Egg, they called it The Crimson, which is fine enough by the Egg. It had been called many names over the years, and it didn't matter what name they used.

It didn't often hear things outside of its cave, either, occasionally moving to indoctrinate another wayward soul that had been brought into its arms. Diamond turned to crimson, red faded to white and grey, ice blue eyes turned red. Everything would be fine, and it would be fed and comfortable once more. Maybe another mansion would be erected around it, and it could find a beautiful piglin to replace its old vassal.

But it does not have to look hard! Its reach had spread so far across the land that even in the snowy tundra (that made it so hard to think and harder still to influence) it could feel a descendant of Billiam, of one of its very favorite (most favored) vassals. It has earned a bit of selfishness, after blessing the land with its Crimson. It has earned the choice of a vassal, and it has made its choice. 

It calls one of its newer vassals, earliest in this recent unearthing but new all the same, to the chamber it had been centered within.

_ Bring me Technoblade _ , it whispered, displacing thoughts with its own will,  _ Bring me him. _

The demon spawn has no choice but to obey, and the egg is left to dwell and to think. Technoblade, a strange name but perhaps naming conveniences had changed over the years of slumber. But it was undoubtedly Billiam's descendent, and it had been such a loss to see him go. 

But time moved on, and the Egg was in danger, and its vassals rose up to protect it.

One good turn deserves another after all, and this time, the Egg will make sure that nothing ever harms another hair on Billiam's descendent. It won't allow it, no matter what it has to do, Technoblade will be safe.

He will know no more pain, no more betrayal, no more blood. He will be safe with the egg.


	2. Bad Thoughts Give Me Bad Dreams

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title from Sleepwalk by Forrest Day

When he woke up, it was with a jolt. _Something was wrong_ , the thought thrummed in his veins even as he patted over the bed to make sure that he was actually at home. Chat was silent, but that was usual for them, they took a little bit to wake up and Techno wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth and wake them up.

Who would want hundreds of thousands of voices all clamoring for your immediate attention, after all. It wasn't like Techno was going to be able to go back to sleep, not with the chorus of _wrong, wrong, something wrong_ vibrating along his bones. Might as well get an early start to the day.

He paused at the window, staring out at the fresh coat of snow that had fallen during the night. The sunrise turned the entire landscape rose pink, the sky a similar ruddy hue. It wasn't unique, no matter how many poets cried to the stars about every single one being unique it wasn't, but it was beautiful as all the rest. If Wilbur was there-

If Wilbur was there a lot of things would be different. Techno tore his gaze away from the red sunrise, focusing instead on the noise from the kitchen-living room-dining room that made up the second floor.

Or more accurately, the lack of noise. Strange, Phil was usually an earlier riser than Techno himself and he could count on one hand the amount of times that he was up earlier than the man. Maybe he was sleeping in, or (more likely) he was already out and tending to the small collection of animals that Techno kept. Best to be self-sufficient in the Arctic, even though this wasn't exactly the old SMP that Wilbur had cajoled them all into joining.

His nails bit into his palms, it had been months since his twin had died and yet it was like he was still alive. Needling and poking and inserting himself into everything, drenching everything in red. Not that Wilbur was particularly associated with red, Techno more associated the color yellow with him. Orange, if it was a bad day and they had more differences than similarities. But Techno also knew just how easily red stained.

"Phil?" He called, trusting that his voice would carry far enough that his father could hear, "If you're taking care of the cows, tell me so I don't put on my muck boots!"

The expected laughter did not ring back, further adding to the undercurrent of something underneath his skin. It wasn't the voices, Techno knew just how easily they could play tricks but this wasn't one of theirs. The voices loved Phil, they wouldn't mess around with Techno's perception of him.

The window was open. Techno wasn't sure if it had always been, but the room had gained a chill. The sun still bounced off of the snow, making it hard for him to make out any shapes in the distance. Phil was either out of sight, or he was just downstairs and too enraptured in whatever project he had found himself involved with.

It was cold, that much was clear, and Techno absent-mindedly closed the window and latched it. Moving on and making his way downstairs, Techno couldn't stop feeling that something was wrong. Maybe it was just the fact that Phil wasn't answering any of the calls that he did at the top of his lungs (just in case the man had gone overboard and passed out over his work).

Maybe it was the fact that Chat still hadn't woken up (again, not the worst thing in the world, Techno didn't exactly mind having a mostly quiet morning). Or the fact that Techno still hadn't gotten quite used to the lack of a basement-living raccoon who kept stealing his gapples and ruining his life at the same time as he improved it.

Maybe it was because he kept getting plagued by particularly sappy thoughts that he had grown too used to shoving down. Wilbur always was the better at emotions twin, he was always the best out of the two of them.

"Phil?" He wasn't in his room, or in the spare room ( _Tommy's Room_ , a part of him mourned) that was still covered in tomes and papers and artifacts that might be able to help with their plan to stop Techno from feeling like half a person. The kitchen was empty as well, and Techno wasn't sure how to take the culmination of it all.

He wasn't in the house, and there weren't any notes left in the usual spots (Techno had checked, he was sure that he had or else this worry wouldn't be underneath every single one of his motions). Which meant two things: he could either be outside with the animals, or he could have left during the night for one of his many searches for information.

Techno wasn't sure which one he favored, especially since they ended the same way. Him worrying over his father. But he couldn't just let himself do nothing, especially if Phil was just out on an early morning walk or feeding the animals. He had to make at least a bit of an effort to start the day, even though something was screaming at him.

Not the voices, still not the voices (and this had to be a record in how long they were quiet for, especially since he realized the truth about them at the tender age of sixteen), but there was a sense of danger. Danger that he had grown a little too unused to during his retirement, even after the botched butcher army or Doomsday or finding Tommy underneath his floorboards with a pile of stolen things.

He had never felt this sort of danger in his own home, never had this skin crawling urge to _run run run_ while at his own home. Phil or not, the cottage was his home and he was supposed to feel safe there.

Maybe tending to the animals would clear his mind, work through it while doing menial, repetitive labor.

Techno stared at the door to the backyard, wondering when he had moved from thinking about the kitchen to being in the kitchen itself. He had probably just zoned out, even though it had been months since he had zoned out that hard, but it was still disquieting.

His hand met with the cool metal of the door handle, and he opened the door to be met with a sea of red.

Not pink (maybe it had never been pink), but bright crimson red. Maybe it wasn't even snow in the first place, just vines and plant matter and the sort of rot that forms on the bottom of dense forests.

In the real world (the waking world, the world that held no less feelings of _danger_ but at least was real), Technoblade's eyes snapped open to see the same shade of red.

On the walls, on the ground, wrapping around his body, everything had been overtaken by large red vines. Some seemed to pulse as they crawled further over the walls, others were a duller red than the rest and laid slumped on the floor. They were the same vines that Techno had sprayed with weed killer again and again, every single time that they had kept crawling back and trying to overtake the small garden that he had assembled.

There was another issue, Techno realized as he attempted to sit up and rub at his temple. Attempted being the key word, as he couldn't quite move. The vines were tying him down, holding him against even more of their mass and keeping him from getting even the slightest bit of leverage.

He could move his neck, and did so to attempt to see if there was any way that he could get himself out and not have to wait for Phil to figure out where he was. He couldn't hear the usual jingle of gold chains and jewels, meaning that he didn't have any of his jewelry (which was just rude, who would take the time to strip him off all jewelry).

There was also a distinct lack of weight on his head, which was explained by the fact that he could see (perched upon a shelf-like vine) his crown. It was laying on top of the rest of his jewelry, like every single piece of gold had been stripped off of him and placed there. Insult to injury, the friendship emerald (wrapped in a delicate twist of gold to suit as an earring) was hanging precariously over the edge.

But the voices were still quiet, blessedly so, and Techno could let himself gather his thoughts to himself for once. Maybe make a solid plan of actual escape that won't make him rely on Phil finding him. Maybe he could-

_Technolate!_

Well, there went that hope.

_Technolate what a LOSER!_

_L_

_L_

_Guys is anyone else worried?_

_Loser_

_Technolate_

_Guys I don't think he can hear most of you_

_L_

_L_

_Loser_

_Guys why is it all red here?_

_MY WORDS WON'T GET THROUGH!!!_

_Who's blocking the chain?_

**_Do you wish for me to make them silent?_ **

That certainly wasn't a Voice.

**_Do you wish for me to remove them? I can, Darling Prince, if you want me to._ **


	3. But The Smoke Clears when You’re Around

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title comes from Curses by The Crane Wives

The voice that invaded his thoughts was nowhere near the same as Medea's. Nowhere near the collective thoughts of every other blood god acolyte in history annoying him for every single second of his life. For starters, it was a single voice. A single overpowering voice that effortlessly silenced every other voice in his mind. 

**_You come from such a strong family line, you know, even though you never really stayed around your birth family._ ** The egg (that's what it was, Techno had heard of the spreading corruption with the trademark color) had purred in his ear no longer after silencing the voices.

The mention of his birth family almost made him laugh. Piglins never actually stuck around their birth family longer than it was absolutely necessary to survive. Wilbur and him had split off not long after their first birthday (strange for humans, but average for Piglins), and had wandered through the nether. Never sticking near the actual bastion that they had originally been raised in, instead they made a small home in the middle of a crimson forest.

Which just made the egg worse, it all felt far too much like the early days of his life. When he was too small to protect Wilbur and Wilbur was too weak to protect himself (he had always been a sickly kid, always needed someone watching his back). Back before Phil had even been someone who they had known of, back when all they had was each other. 

It wasn't often that the egg even spoke to him in full sentences, usually it was only reserved for directly afterwards the voices were silenced. Usually the egg settled into a routine of chitters and clicks and small words. It was always the same three words repeated over and over again.

**_Stay._ **

**_Sleep._ **

**_Calm._ **

So far, for however long it had been (could not be longer than a week, minimum of two days), Techno had only ever followed one of those directions willingly. It was better for him to slip into sleep rather than have to deal with the switch between no voices, the egg, and the voices. Sleep was a better option than laying awake and being unable to move, better option than letting the voices start to devolve into something much more violent than just complaining.

The dreams that he got were usually of his family as well, and that made it just a bit better. It was usually him and Wilbur, the good and the bad (reassuring, reassuring, it wasn't saccharine it was the good and the bad). Them in the nether, them at Phil's, them play fighting and real fighting and the worst day of Techno's life.

The worst day had happened when they were 16, a few mere days after their birthday. Wilbur had just gotten his first brand new guitar, Techno had gotten his first piece of netherite weaponry. He hadn't been at the house when it happened, he had been out trying to improve his tracking and fighting with the newly heavier weapon on his back.

Techno had left when the house was warm and lit with candles, a brother waiting in their bedroom with a promise that he'll have a song together by the time he returns. He came back with a slaughtered deer to a worried father and a cold bedroom, the window left open and half ripped off its hinges.

He hadn't seen Wilbur for a year after that night, only to have him return warped and wrong. Not wrong enough to stop Techno from hugging him tight to his chest, but wrong enough that no one ever believed them again when they insisted they were twins. His gait was slightly affected, Wilbur waving him off with some comment about a bad fall, his ears had slight fins around them (a laugh about a ram and an inappropriate joke). His eyes were red-

Wait a second.

Techno forced his eyes to open, being greeted with the now-familiar sight of rough stone covered in red vines that seemed to defy gravity. A fog surrounded his memories in a way that it wasn't before, making his brother's eyes look the same shade of red.

But that couldn't be true. Whatever the Sky Gods had did, it had crossed his twin's genes with those of an Elder Guardian. Elder Guardian's had orange eyes, not red. And certainly not the same red of the Egg.

"Get out of my mind," Techno cringed at the sound of his own voice, rougher after a day or two of complete silence. It echoed strangely in the room, bouncing back at him without truly echoing.

**_I am not in your mind_ ** , the Egg crooned, somehow mimicking laughter. It was a bold faced lie, and Techno wished that there was something he could punch. Just to show that he was not someone who should be toyed with, that he wasn't someone who could just be manipulated and twisted around for some deity's amusement. 

**_Is that not what Medea does to you? When they spawn anger and hate in your veins, when they put so much pressure on you to become a weapon?_ **

Technoblade bristled, teeth gritting as he tried to flex his shoulders enough to break the vines' hold on him. It didn't work, just like the last five times he tried, but it made him better to feel like he was actually trying to fight back. That's what he had to do, until he found a weak point that he could exploit, he just had to fight back. 

He hated the feeling of another presence in his mind, he had long gotten used to the feeling of thousands of voices crowding his mind and chattering about nonsensical things but the feeling of the Egg was different. It was like a blanket, settling over all of his other thoughts and voices and muffling them all until he could only really focus on it's words.

The voices, the Blood God themselves, didn't like it any more than Techno did. He wasn't sure how he felt about agreeing with them, but it was just how it was at this point. The voices were more like a thousand buzzing insects, all trying to get him to pay attention to them specifically. Annoying, but not exactly cloying and distracting like the Egg.

Techno didn't let the words drown out the thoughts of his brother, not for long. He forced the haze and fog and vines away from his mind (even though his head was now held resolutely in place by vines lacing through his hair) and focused back on Wilbur.

It was the easiest thing to center himself in with. Phil was his oldest friend, his father figure and mentor and co-emperor and everything that came along with it, but he wasn't Wilbur. Phil had changed their lives for the better and everything, but Wilbur was his twin. Wilbur was his other half in everything that they ever did and it was easiest to remember the truth surrounding him.

His brother had orange eyes, not red, and he had strange fins on his ears and gills on his neck. Wilbur was strange and terrifying and he had always been his brother. And he always will be, even though he was dead. 

There was a pressure building behind his eyes, and he knew that the Egg was trying to talk with him. More honey laced words about promises that Techno hoped that it couldn't deliver on, barbs and offers if only Techno would just calm down and stop fighting. He wasn't sure if this was a god, or a demon, or whatever sort of powerful being that could cover up the noises of the Blood God, but he knew better.

Techno had second hand experience with what happens when a mortal (for no matter how much he boasted about not dying, he was just a mortal at the end of the day) finally gives in to a deity with no true regard for humanity. Wilbur came back changed, and the physical aspects were only the most obvious changes to his twin.

**_I could give him back to you, I could give him back to you, whole and unchanged_ ** .

Techno wished that the Egg would shut up, it was one of the first things that he wanted to happen (followed very closely by Phil coming in and pesticide'ing the vines keeping him down). It was a little too invasive for his liking, even the voices of the blood god weren't invasive (just incredibly, incredibly annoying). 

The Egg seemed intent on making Techno's mind go completely blank every time it so much as made its intent to speak clear. Techno, however, was very good at not paying attention to voices. He had years of experience (both with the supernatural voices as well as his very annoying brothers) of shutting out unwanted noises.

Back to Wilbur, centered on Wilbur, he remembered their old home. Back before Tommy had joined their patchwork family and long before Wilbur fell into the sky. When it was just him and Techno and Phil, no angels, no gods, and just a father and two sons. It was a family until it wasn't, and then Wilbur was gone.

If Techno had to place anything in a specific timeline, Wilbur's disappearance was the beginning of the end. Or maybe it was the end and everything that came after was just the aftershocks. It was a long time coming, if Techno let himself be angry and petty, but it really wasn't surprising that they all started to drift after that.

Techno was just sixteen, Tommy was just six, and Phil was...old, and tired. 

Three days after Techno (and Wilbur's, there was a noticeable pause after Techno's name during the song) seventeenth birthday, the window was left open and Wilbur (always Wilbur no matter how different) tumbled inside sobbing. Phil woke up to three crying children and Techno's world righted itself the second his brother hugged him. 

It had taken a while to get back to normal after that, especially with Wilbur's new powers and his new look on life and the way that he looked a little too haunted too often for Techno's comfort. He started a server of his own, invited the entire family along with him (and maybe that was a sign that the Sky Gods had given him too much power). Tommy had run off and found himself a group of like minded chaotic individuals and founded a whole business bay, Wilbur had his own nation (Newfoundland, what a stupid name), and him and Phil had struck out on their own. 

The Antarctic Empire, about as anarchist as an empire could get. A father and son and their numerous war crimes enacted on their recently returned family's world. Wilbur put them on trial, and they stood under the Antarctic Flag: a sun on a red background.

Again, his eyes snap open.

Lips twisted into a harsh scowl and he dug his fingernails into his palms. Letting him feel the pain to ground himself (not the best coping mechanism, but at least it was something that could jerk him back into his mind. It wasn't red, red didn't have any place in the Antarctic Empire.

It was blue and white and occasionally green (Phil had his style after all, and Techno knew better than to separate him from his god-ugly bucket hat). There wasn't any red, there had never been red in the empire. It was just a lie, just something that had been constructed in his mind by the outside source.

"If you could get out of my head, that would be pretty great," His voice was a little raw, a little weak and he realized it had been at least two days since he had drunk anything. Two days since he had eaten anything either, which was a little concerning. The Egg didn't seem to actually want him to die, so he had to wonder how exactly the Egg planned to keep him alive.

Maybe that was what scared him more; however the Egg planned on keeping him alive, it wasn't going to be good.


	4. And I May Yet Fall Apart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Title from Curses by The Crane Wives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, quick warning: There's a little bit of death here! Not graphically described, but it's there!

The next week (or at least, seven cycles of waking up and falling back into restless, warped sleep) passed far too quickly for Techno's liking. Not even the voices in his head helped, too often either settled into panic about messages and warnings not coming through or far too complacent with just jokes and letters. 

Techno wasn't sure if he liked the fact that the Egg could silence the voices, no matter how quiet his head became as a result. The idea that the voices could be warning him, telling him that he's so close to being saved and he should keep his eyes open just a bit longer this time. He wasn't sure if it would make a difference if they could talk to him, not with the Egg still ever present in his mind.

**_Do not worry. Do not worry. Everything is just fine. The only thing you have to do is sleep._ **

But sleep was not a respite, in fact it was often the opposite. He would find himself in a warped version of the past, small things changed and fragmented and corrupted. His family was always there (always, always), but it was never quite the correct family. Wilbur always had red red eyes (incorrect, he had orange eyes because of what the Sky Gods did to him), or the flag was red and not blue (red made no sense, they were in the Arctic).

Sometimes it was more obviously wrong (colors being off, words coming out garbled, red vines crawling over the ceiling and floor and walls and people), but it was worse when it was subtle.

"I'm just saying." A twelve year old version of his twin laughed, doing a fancy (if useless) move with his fencing saber, "Dad can't get mad at both of us."

"Yes he can," Techno says, already knowing exactly where this memory is going. They were twelve and had just figured out that the window in their room led right to the rooftops. "He so can, he's our dad. He's  _ Phil _ ." He was also in his phase where he was insistent on calling their dad by his first name. Out of a desire to seem older than he was.

"No, he won't! You said it yourself, he's our dad! We're his baby, baby, boys." Wilbur's eyes (deep maroon still, the Sky Gods had not made their presence known at this point) sparkled and he spoke in a childish voice. "He would never punish us, especially not for just something as small and minor as climbing up on the rooftops. We're going to be completely safe, don't tell me you're  _ scared." _

_ " _ I'm not scared!" he said, in the annoyed sort of voice of someone who really does not want to go on the roof. "But fine, you're going first."

Wilbur laughed, head tilted back and all his teeth (and his tusks, sharper than Techno's) showing. "Fine, fine, since you're so scared, I'll show you that it's completely safe." He moved to the wall and tugged down on one of the sconces.

Technoblade barely let himself acknowledge the fact that they were just fencing, that they had sabers in their hands and protective suits on, and let himself follow his twin. Best to let the memory run its course, or else it could take a too sharp dive and leave him shaking until the next sleep cycle claimed him.

Their old home ( _ Phil's _ castle, a castle without an actual empire attached) was full of secret passages. Stones that you could press, sconces that could be yanked down, statues that could be moved. There were passages that led to every other room in the castle, though not all were used on a regular basis.

The tunnel leading from the weapons room to the twins' bedroom was used almost daily. Even though Wilbur was not one for constant fighting, he followed Techno around like a lost duckling whenever neither of them had classes. Techno was always in the weapon's room, practicing on various dummies and poor soldiers that had fallen victim to non-stop begging. Wilbur was always there, sitting on a rolled up mat with a book in his lap or a guitar lazily being played. 

In the dark of the tunnel, Wilbur's hand found his and squeezed it. "It's okay if you don't wanna do it, y'know? I just thought it would be nice, just a little place for the two of us to chill."

"No, it's okay, I think it would be a nice place to watch the sunset." The sunset and sunrise were always their favorite change from the Nether, at least at this point in time. Such a strong change from the never ending haze of the nether (bright red - dark red - bright red), and Techno still remembered the first time that Phil had shown them the sunrise.

His nails bite into his palm. This is a memory, he can't let it change again. A memory changing halfway through always ended in so much red and so many vines until it was hard to figure out if he had woken up or if he was still asleep. 

Wilbur brightened up, his smile just barely visible in the dim light of smoldering torches, "I knew it!" he cheered, and Techno felt a time lost pang of  _ hurt _ go through his chest.

This Wilbur reminded him of Ghostbur, or the other way around. Childish and unburdened and proud of every single time that he successfully caught someone in a lie (or got them to do something). After his disappearance, Wilbur stopped being so proud about getting people to do things (it had stopped being an accomplishment). 

But this Wilbur was proud and smiling and Techno couldn't remember when the last time he saw his brother this at ease was.

(A lie, it was the night of their sixteenth birthday and the night before he disappeared, his eyes had been red in the candlelight as their family sang for them).

In between one blink and the next, Techno found himself in their bedroom. Wilbur had already gotten their window open, hanging mostly out of the window and dangling over the roof. "It's not too bad, really it's pretty nice out here!" A look over his shoulder and he grinned ever wider, "Get the blanket, will you? The shingles on the roof are going to get annoying after a while, we should get something to pad out."

That hadn't happened, this wasn't how the memory went.

They had gone out onto the roof with no blanket, sat out there until the sun set and their father came looking for them, and complained afterwards about the soreness that made sitting down unbearable. Wilbur had complained and said it was Techno's fault that he hadn't thought through the plan that he was dragged into.

"Heh?" he responded, head tilted.

"The blanket, Tech. Can you grab the blanket from the bed and hand it over here?" Wilbur moved out onto the rooftop, shakily rising to his feet and placing his hands on his hips. The precarious balance was already making his feet unsteady, continually shifting back and forth on the shingles.

Techno felt like he was moving through molasses as he went to the edge of the bed to pick up the heavy woven blanket. It was a recent (in this memory, at least, it had been over a decade since Techno had seen the blanket) gift from their father, a bright blue background with the symbol of the Empire crafted into the middle.

(Techno had to shut his eyes for a second and open them again to make sure that the sun stayed white. The Egg had a nasty habit of worming its way into places that it didn't belong into his mind, and he had to make sure to correct discrepancies whenever he spotted them. Leaving them alone made the thing get cocky, get more obvious, and Techno wanted to have one memory. Just one).

Another slow blink, and Techno was already passing the blanket through the window into his brother's hands.

Another slow blink, and the weight of the blanket and the unsteady footing and the wind and the shingles underneath were enough to blow him off balance. Wilbur's eyes went wide, and Techno realized that a changed memory was never good. No matter how banal the change was, no matter how minor, it was never good.

The Egg changing things never ended up well, and he should have allowed it to gain even an inch.

He reminded himself that fact as he leaned out the window to stare at his brother's broken body. No matter how small (he looked so small down there, they were so young in this memory), no matter how old the memory (two years away from being irreparably changed, and yet the entire memory began to fracture).

Technoblade's eyes snapped open to the half-lit darkness of the cavern.

He hated how he could tell that the vines had moved around, hated that the cavern ceiling had become familiar enough that he could notice even the smallest changes.

**_You are very mean to me._ **

And the Egg was awake, and must have recently been fed considering it was speaking in his head. Techno stifled his own groan, already fully waking up and feeling the stiffness of his joints. It had been a week of barely moving at all, and every time Techno woke up it got more and more painful.

The vines surrounding him began to move, wrapping around his joints and forcing him to sit up. Techno bit down harsh on his tongue, fighting back the scream that wanted to come out at the feeling of stiff joints being forced to move. 

It was an alien, unwelcome feeling as the Egg began to stretch and move his limbs for him. Techno could not control the pace, he could not control anything about his body as the Egg forcibly began to exercise his limbs. The feeling of being tugged in two directions in order to stretch the joints of his spine, the feeling of his shoulders being forced to roll back (and the sound of all of his joints popping and shifting without his permission).

It was a little like what he would imagine a doll would be, like he was being posed in various ways to remain in mint condition. Techno resolved that he was only allowing it to happen because he didn't want to be in any less than prime condition when ( _ when _ , not if, Techno had enough trust in his father to know that it was only a matter of time) Phil showed up.

He was going to have to help, after all, he couldn't expect Phil to handle whatever the Egg was on his own. 

Maybe not on his own, considering that he still had Tommy (almost, there was a certain two-way betrayal that still separated the family), and if their plan was going ahead without him, then he would soon also have Wilbur. Techno knew that the Sky Gods had given his twin powers (as well as a new form, a new form that was almost too alien to recognize him with). If there was anyone who could command and sway the vines, it would be Wilbur.

Wilbur, with his silver tongue and orange eyes that never seemed to let anyone go without his permission. Wilbur with his guitar and his pride and his ability to know exactly what you wanted and how to make it into what he wanted. Wilbur, who the Sky Gods had taken and favored and twisted until he was almost no longer Techno's brother. 

But Techno was stubborn, Wilbur even more so, and they refused to let time and circumstance and trauma stop them from being twins.

**_Do you want him back? I can give you him back._ **

Techno cringed, tugging at the restraining vines at the feeling of the voice worming into his mind. Whatever promises that this Egg made, it would never be fulfilling. They would never work out for the best, and it would just get worse. He went through his breathing exercises, keeping himself calm and keeping his mind blank (if his mind is blank, then the Egg does not know what it wants).

**_Stop hiding your mind from me. I am trying to help. You are being ungrateful._ **

His breathing hitched in the back of his throat, memories of Wilbur the night after he came back, when they were sitting on Techno's bed together. Memories of how exactly Wilbur had been taught just how to be grateful to his kidnappers, to the Sky Gods that controlled his life.

**_You have to stop fighting, Darling Prince. I am keeping you safe._ **

"You're-" Techno attempt to speak led to him choking on his own dry throat, chest heaving slightly as he tried to clear his throat. His mouth was dry, not even spit to swallow in order to speak. His chest heaved, unable to clear his throat properly, until vines grasped his chin and tilted his head upwards. 

Sometime in between one sleep and the next, the vine had sprouted heavy leaves. Heavy enough so that they could catch rainwater (distantly, Techno reminded himself of the dangers of drinking rainwater without boiling it first) and Techno found his mouth forced open and something too sweet to be water slipped down his throat.

He didn't want to drink, but it was either drink or drown and Techno didn't want his family to rescue a corpse. He couldn't let Phil lose another son, he couldn't let Tommy lose another brother.

Something unfurled in his chest and he found himself sinking right back down to sleep without finishing his sentence.

The last lucid thought he had before going under was questioning what he was even trying to say.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So! You'll have noticed that Strangler Fig is now in a series! That is because I want to make sure that this story stays pretty narratively coherent, and that means having any POV but Techno-focused would definitely ruin the sort of slow deprivation and isolation theme that I'm going for here. 
> 
> So that means, China Cabinet is going to have the excerpt (and technically optional) chapters of other people's perspective! Right now, I have 3 planned. The Egg, Philza, and a surprise guest that will help us later. First chapter of it goes up tomorrow! Hopefully I might have chapter 5 done by then as well, but no promises on that.


	5. Turn And Don't You Think Of Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Shallow River by The Crane Wives

Techno isn't exactly sure what he was given, but he knew it had been making him fall asleep for longer. The vines had crept further across the ceiling, and he was reminded (in a horrible twisted fashion) of a time when he could count the hours based on the growth of potatoes. 

But there was no timer, and he wasn't sure how long he had stayed asleep. There is no clock that can tell him how much time was lost to far too dreamless sleep. All he can figure out is that there was something wrong with him. His body had become used to the feeling of the vines moving him around, and no longer bothered to fight back. No matter how much his mind railed against the idea, his body had given up the ghost of resistance.

It was more concerning than it should be-

No, it was just as concerning as it should be. Techno's body no longer responding to his mind's wishes was a concerning thing. But his mind was untouched, his mind remained as whole and unworried as he could allow it to be. It was hard not to lose himself to the panic of being alone and trapped and surrounded by something undeniably alive. 

**_Hello Darling Prince_ ** .

Another consequence of whatever the Egg had fed him, it could speak to him a lot easier. The voices were quiet, in a way that made Techno's mind feel far too empty. He never thought he would actually miss the Greek chorus of voices telling him that he missed diamonds, or repeating letters that had no actual meaning, or telling him to kill everyone around him.

Maybe Phil was right, he should've probably sought some sort of therapy for that. But, in his defense, who was going to believe Techno that he had all of the voices of past Blood Gods constantly in his head because he was fated to join them upon death. Well, that was assuming he’d break his motto. No one ever questioned why he stuck to it.

Techno tensed, fighting the urge to attempt to squirm away from the tendrils crawling all over his exposed skin, and chewed on the inside of his cheek. Not one of his best habits, but a long standing one. The taste of copper in his mouth was grounding as it was familiar, and Techno shoved the presence out of his mind as well as he could.

**_Do you miss your family, dear one?_ **

_ Yes. _ The thought sprang to the forefront of his mind before he could stop it. It wasn't a lie (no matter how much he liked to refuse that he had any attachments), but it certainly wasn't one that he liked to admit to.  _ Still, _ he reasoned with himself,  _ it's not like there's anyone to judge. _

Well, there was the Egg. There was always going to be the Egg.

**_Do you want your family here?_ **

That was a much different question, and Technoblade felt his throat go dry. He wants the exact opposite, in fact, he wants to get out of here and he never wants to see any of his family in the same sort of red plant matter that seemed to crawl over everything else (including him). The thought of his father dressed in red, of either of his brothers in the same unnatural shade? He had faced down armies and yet the thought made his blood run cold.

Techno knew the art of keeping his mind blank (it had been useful in battle, and what was this if not a battle of the minds), and he forced all thoughts of his family to leave him. If there are no thoughts for the Egg to read, then there are no hints for it to take advantage of. He didn't know just how powerful the Egg was, didn't know what rules it could break and what it could do.

Keeping his family out of his mind was more difficult than he expected. When in battle, keeping away thoughts of attachment and family came as easy as breathing. No time to focus on anything other than the enemies and allies around him, the blade in his hands, the blood spattering on his face and the delight of his voices.

There was none of that with the Egg. It was an absence of anything that he could distract himself, unable to even move his fingers to try and work out the excess energy that buzzed underneath his skin. His mind kept drawing right back to where it absolutely shouldn't go: Wilbur. 

He missed his brother, in a way that he was almost ashamed of. Attachment was weakness, that's how it always went, and yet Wilbur snuck his way back in. 

His mind wandered, and suddenly he was in a waking memory.

They were seventeen, and Wilbur had just come back from whatever the Sky Gods had done to him. Wilbur came back clingy (Techno had always laughed at him for that, even though he never exactly fought back from any of the hugs), and that night was no different.

Wilbur had shoved their two twin beds against the other, hands shaking too much for Techno to argue or question. The guitar that had sat untouched and out of tune was settled on his lap, but his hands didn't move to strum. "I don't know if I remember how to play."

"That's okay," Techno remembered saying, because this was not one of the half dream memories that could change with a single whim. "Dad taught me a little while you were..."

They stayed silent for a little, both lost in their own respective memories. Wilbur was remembering exactly how he lost the talent that he was so proud of cultivating, how he learned how to have his hands be weapons of destruction rather than creation. Techno was thinking about the time that he attempted to learn the guitar, only for both him and his father to burst into tears. 

"I think I'm going to learn again," Wilbur said.

"I've been thinking of picking up the violin," Techno had mentioned, casual and offhanded.

The memory dissolved as Techno forced the thoughts back, lips twisted up with the effort to banish his twin's face from his mind. He doesn't want anything, he doesn't want anything, he especially doesn't want his family anywhere close to him. More breathing exercises, something to keep all of the memories away.

His chest expanded, and he had to stop himself from choking on the musty air of the room. It tasted like no one had been in there for far too long (Techno reminded himself that he was one of the people who had been in the room, and he knew that the Egg had more people coming to feed it). 

He wondered if the button room where they left his brother's corpse tasted the same, and he was thrown into another memory.

It wasn't a positive one, and it was far more recent. Techno had on his pig mask and Phil's right wing was still bandaged and tender (and the flight feathers were snipped clean off to the quick, almost to the point of bleeding). 

"You left him to rot, Phil." Techno had been heartbroken when he found out that the remains of his brother were never left to rest. That no one quite knew where his body went and no one had bothered to look for it. It felt almost like betrayal, that his father was complacent in allowing the empty ghost to replace his brother.

"In my defense, mate," Phil said, voice far too light for the matter at hand, "you did summon two withers."

"You left him to rot," he repeated, chest shaking slightly as he dug his nails into his palms, "I-" 

He hadn't been able to summon up a reply to that, hadn't been able to put shape or sound to the disgusting mix of feelings inside his chest.

The memory dissolved again, and Techno was left scrambling to put a lid back on the emotions that were bubbling over. He had never gotten an answer, never gotten a full answer beyond the excuse that the withers were. If Techno was any more of a pessimist, he would wonder if he would ever find out the actual reason.

(Here is what he knows: his father is known as the Angel of Death. Here is what he doesn't: how much power he has).

Vines have continued to overtake the ceiling and walls, having already coated the floor in a thick carpet. It made the floor look like it was breathing, the slight rise and fall of every pulse running through the red vines only adding to the uneasiness. The Egg was alive, at least in some sense (nonliving things do not speak, non living things cannot move his body like a doll), but the sight of the floor pulsing underneath made Techno feel (for the first time in so long) very small.

**_Little One. You have so much hurt inside of you. Allow me to make it all better._ **

Techno could feel the vines starting to move around him, and he squirmed slightly in their grasp. No matter how long it had been (and he couldn't place how long, he had long lost track of the time), he had never gotten used to the feeling of vines crawling over his skin. 

"I don't-" His voice was softer, after so long of being completely silent and so little water (and what water he had was not exactly water), but he forced the words out- "I don't want them here."

He doesn't think he'll be able to keep up any of his appearances of the big strong Blood God if his family gets brought in. If he had to live with being the reason that his family was brainwashed (and isn't that what his entire life was?). It wasn't as if pretending to hold no attachments was new to him, he had done it for so very long while he fought on Hypixel.

Techno was not Philza's son (Wilbur's twin) on Hypixel. 

He was just the Blood God, no attachments and no weakness and no one could ever hold anything above him. He woke up, alone, but assured with the fact that his brothers will not be drawn into the world of fighting. That he would be able to get a name for himself that wasn't just as the son of the Angel of Death (though that wasn't exactly a name that he hated, but he was still prideful).

His family had never accepted exactly how far he had taken his principles, but they had understood. Really, that was all that he could have expected from them.

Old habits came in handy every now and then, and Techno cleaned his mind of any attachments. He does not want any of his family members, he does not want company, and he is so very happy being completely alone in the Egg's chamber. 

(Techno wondered when he had gotten so good at lying to himself).

**_You are a liar._ **

Technoblade forced his mind to obey him, cleaning out the memories of his brother (both of them, oh he missed both of them but he couldn't) and his father (who might be his only chance to get out, who might be the only person who can resist the egg). He wants  _ no one _ , he is  _ fine _ being alone. He almost forced the words to brand themselves across his consciousness. He wants no one-

**_Why do you insist on depriving yourself of the things you want, dear one? You could have everything you wish, just ask. Don't you want your family back?_ **

The Egg continued to press and prod at his mind, as if trying to yank out every single stray (desperate, desperate, needy) thought about his family. About how he wants his father to wrap him in his wings again and he wants to hear Wilbur play the guitar and he wants Tommy to say something completely out of left field that would get them all into an argument with no heat. Techno is tired of arguing with those he cares about.

What a laugh, the Blood God (vassal, he reminds himself, the title is fine for the masses but he is more than the voices) being tired of fighting. 

He'd dwell on the irony further if it didn't mean that he'd let the gaping wound left by his torn apart family get dug into. And he knew that the Egg would take any weakness it could get and exploit it, any chink in the armor and any crack in the mask.

And Wilbur ( _ his twin _ , part of him mourned, had never stopped mourning) was one of the largest he had. Even just the barest brush against the void inside of his mind made him recoil, pain springing up fresh like the sword has just entered his brother's body. He didn't feel it (even though Piglin twins had strange connections, they were never that literal), but that didn't matter.

His other half had been ripped away from him by the person who had taken them in and promised them to never hurt them, and Techno was left scrambling. He had lived his entire life as part of a bigger picture and now that picture had burned away. If he was going to be flowery about it (and he wanted to be, found it befitting Wilbur in a morbid way), he would liken it to if the world had tilted off its axis and gravity hadn't caught up.

It hadn't affected him in the moment, and he could almost tell himself that Wilbur was going to respawn. That the off-kilter feeling was temporary, and it was only because Techno had never been there the last time that Wilbur had a permanent death.

It never did, and Techno felt like he was constantly listing to the side.

**_Twins, necessary for a perfect matched set._ **

The Egg went silent after that, and Techno didn't even have time to question what that even meant before he was shoved into another memory. Sleep reclaiming him and tugging him further into the mass of the egg (until the vines crawled over his face and blocked out even the little he could see of the ceiling was blocked out by pulsing red.

The memory he found himself in was a good one (small mercies, if it could be called that). The first time that Wilbur had played a song (and that song had actually been good). They were sitting on the floor of their bedroom, Phil out on a day trip to do whatever adults do, and Wilbur was fumbling with the strings still.

"I got it- I got it, okay?" Wilbur had laughed, batting Techno's hand away from his precious birthday present, "Look, I've been working on this for a while," he said, with an aura of importance that he would grow into, and Techno snorted.

"I know, you've been keeping me up this entire time." Not entirely a lie, but he could remember just how annoyed he had been in the moment when Wilbur distracted him from his book for the fifth time that day.

"Shh." Wilbur reached over to flick Techno's nose before settling back down and getting his fingers in position. "I uh, this isn't one of Dad's songs, y'know? This is the one that I've been writing since uh- since before our birthday actually. It was kinda supposed to be a birthday present for you but uh-" He trailed off with a little laugh.

Techno knew exactly what expression was on his own face, having seen it so many times reflected back at him. Exasperated fondness, which was such a common emotion around Wilbur (or at least it had been, towards the end of Pogtopia it had been much different). "We chose our own birthday. If I wanted to I could just declare that my birthday is right now."

"You can't, actually, because we're twins and you would have to get me to agree to that! And I  _ don't _ , because I like our birthday very much." 

Wilbur hummed to get himself into tune, and Techno bit down the reply in his throat as he started to strum. A B minor chord, and he started to actually sing: 

_ The cute bomber jacket you've had since sixth form, _

_ adorned with patches of places you've been _

_ has nothing on my khaki coat that I got from a roadside, _

_ when I was sixteen. _

"We're not sixteen, Wil, and this is one depressing birthday song."

Wilbur leveled him with a glare hard enough for him to raise his hands in surrender, and went back to the B minor chord.

The dream dissolved around him, and yet the music persisted. Techno held onto the memory of his brother, letting the chords play in his mind even though-

Techno stilled, the vines slowly retreating from his face. The music was audibly playing, the music was not just in his mind. Vines began to tug him up, forcing him upright and twining around his chin to force him to look to the side.

He thinks he's going to be sick.

Sitting there, posed like a preserved china doll with an equally preserved guitar settled on its lap (fingers playing the tune that Techno had long memorized), was the corpse of his twin. 


	6. Pretty Little Things Wilt Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Pretty Little Things by The Crane Wives

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a warning: this is what's known as the corpse chapter. There's a lot of description of corpses in this chapter. Also a lot of worldbuilding.

Techno wasn't sure if he was properly comprehending the sight in front of him. 

The ruined (scraped apart and shredded to the point that Techno could see bone) fingers clumsily moving against strings in the worst sort of way. The way that Wilbur's entire left cheek had been replaced with a spindly flower (Japanese Spider Lily, Techno knew it from one of the flower books that Wilbur had gotten him).

It had to be some cruel joke, his eyes playing tricks on him after so long of seeing only the color red. Maybe the last memory had been too much for his frazzled brain, and he had finally broken down. 

That would be the preferable option, so much more than the option where he was staring at the actual rotting corpse of his brother.

The lack of smell was almost enough to convince him that it was a hallucination, if it wasn't for the overwhelming stench of the egg. Overtly sweet like rot, cloying and thick and all too dizzying whenever he forced himself to focus on the present. Techno had his fair share of experiences with corpses (not his brothers, he had long thought it lost to the flora that attempted to reclaim the crater), and he knew that they stunk to the Aether.

But whatever corpse smell (whatever rot had overtaken Wilbur) was easily covered up and drowned out with too-sweet, too-thick rotting plant matter.

If it even was rotting, or if this was just the smell it naturally produced.

Techno couldn't stop staring at his hands.

Wilbur's hands were perfect, so far removed from Techno's war scarred and battle beaten ones. A few callouses on the fingers, one starburst of a scar in the center of his right hand (an arrow, a knife, a fork, the story changed every time), but nothing else. They were an artist's hands in every sense of the phrase, long fingered and delicate and just barely worn with practice.

Death had changed his brother.

Techno couldn't stop staring at the remains of his brother's hands.

They were shattered, pearly slivers of bone ripping through loose flesh, and poorly remade. Instead of the pale flesh that used to make up the entirety of his brother (the color had drained from him with the year he was in the sky), plant matter formed horrific simulacrum around the remains, forcing them to stick together.

Small vines wrapped around every joint and tendon on the hands (Techno found the scene easier to process if he removes who the hands belong to), before the smaller vines joined into a larger vine that ran up the wall. It was sort of like looking at a puppet, if the puppet was perfectly molded after the one person he missed more than anyone else.

**_You wanted your family. I gave you a piece. Now you understand just what I can do for you._ **

This is not what Techno wanted, this was barely his family. His brother was so much more than just the body that he inhabited (it was why it was so easy to accept him back even though he was strange and different), and so much more than the pale shade that haunted their family.

Techno swallowed against his dry throat, knowing that if he had anything in his stomach it would have come right back up. His shoulders shook with the effort to keep from dry heaving. It had been years since he had felt this way, shuddering and shivering and undeniably freezing down to his core. Nether hybrids weren't supposed to feel the cold, and Techno wondered if his body was finally feeling the effects of missing his other half.

Flowers had bloomed across the worst of his brother's fatal injuries, morbidly pretty. All the same spider lilies crawling across him, red and startling against the faded and stained white of Wilbur's blouse. Crawling out of the hole in his cheek, springing from his fatal stab wound (still unhealed, the egg had not healed him; it had only sealed up the wound and filled it) like a field. 

Vines wrapped around his eyes (Techno wasn't sure what he would do if Wilbur opened his eyes and they matched his), and around his neck. The wall where Wilbur was propped against was covered in vines, it was hard to tell which ones were around Wilbur and which just merely crawled over him like he was just another hunk of rock to reclaim.

Techno couldn't stop staring at his brother's hands.

They were ruined, from decay or from scrabbling against his own sword stuck in his gut.

(Wilbur had regretted it, seconds too late but Techno could feel the agony of his brother's regret course through him before it got swept away by the voices.) 

They were ripped and tattered and gory and Techno watched as the plant matter wrapped around the tips until the guitar playing became slightly less clumsy.

Somehow, in between Techno fighting back the urge to throw up, and him getting stuck on the remains of Wilbur's fingers, the song had changed. It was a slower one, another one of the sad ones (one that came later, after they had finally turned seventeen and Wilbur had come back different) that Wilbur loved to write.

It was their father's favorite song.

Techno wondered if he would still like it after this, if he would ever be able to listen to guitar music without seeing nothing but red and rot (he wondered if he would get out, if there would even be an "after" for him). Still, he couldn't stop himself from humming along to the familiar, if clumsy tune.

It was almost like Wilbur was learning guitar again (for the second time, when his fingers were calloused and cruel and unused to creating anything but his newest game). Clumsy and inexperienced and almost painful at points (worse now, worse now that he knew exactly how talented Wilbur truly was), but it was still Wilbur enough.

If he closed his eyes, and ignored the scent of rot and metal, it was almost like he was back at Phil's. Like he was laying down on his bed listening to Wilbur play his guitar, and Phil was just waiting in the kitchen for them to come down for dinner.

Of course, the scent of rot was too overpowering, and he knew far too well where he was to truly sink into the fantasy. Instead, he let himself sink into guilt at the sight of his twin's badly kept body. 

Piglins were proud, and even though Techno had only spent the first five years of his life in the Nether, he still knew the customs. He carried a box of jewelry around with him at all times, always prepared to die and pass on peacefully. The box had been taken, with the rest of his valuables and memorial objects (he didn't know where his crown went, or the friendship emerald, or the box), and he had no clue what would happen if he died here.

Piglins were superstitious, and there were so many rumors of what would happen to your soul if you were buried improperly. Techno felt a brief flash of guilt; his brother was never buried properly and his spirit was amnesiac and stuck. 

He wondered if Phil knew about the rumors, about the superstitions surrounding piglins, burials, and ghosts. 

He hoped not. He hoped his father wouldn't keep Wilbur from having a proper burial just to keep a sliver of him tethered to the world.

Even if Wilbur wasn't exactly a piglin anymore (just one of the things he'll never forgive the Sky Gods for, taking away his brother's heritage and leaving him alien even to his twin), some things still remained. Piglin souls were so tightly tied to their bodies that improper burial techniques could lead to...worse outcomes. 

(Techno remembered wandering the Crimson Forests as a very young child, Wilbur always protected behind him and his golden sword, and seeing unfortunate piglins with bone showing through leathery skin. Empty eye sockets staring and face forcibly lax).

Against his will, his eyes flicked up to his brother's face. Wilbur's eyes were covered, thankfully. Techno wasn't sure if he could handle seeing glazed over and dull eyes (not when all of his memories were of Wilbur fiery and passionate and so very alive). 

The thing that was most surprising (once he got over the initial, bone-deep terror of his brother's corpse being there in the first place) was just how perfectly preserved Wilbur was.

Again, his mind forced up images of china dolls. The webbing of vines almost looked like fine cracks in his skin, the bloom overtaking the side of his face only furthering that. Wilbur should be far more rotted than he is, especially if Phil wasn't lying and his body was just left to rot in a damp cave. 

His corpse should barely even be more than a skeleton, let alone recognizable as his brother. 

**_I have been waiting for you, Darling Prince._ **

The intrusion of the Egg into his thoughts made him shudder worse, or maybe he was just constantly shivering now that there was someone else in the room. It made his hair stand on end, all of his instincts screaming out that he should be defending his back (but it's his brother, that's his brother he shouldn't be scared). 

"What-" His breath shook in his chest- "What do you mean you've been waiting for me?"

**_I have heard rumors of a descendant of one of my own vassals before. I knew I would find you eventually. Your twin is not like you._ **

A vast understatement. Wilbur never really had much in common with him, always preferring to stick himself in the corner with a guitar no matter where they were.

**_so very different from you really it's like you aren't twins at all!_ **

Techno got the feeling that the egg was laughing at that, even though there was no perceivable noise around him. He bit his cheek again, the taste of iron enough to keep him calm. Wilbur was his twin, no matter what. Nothing could change that, not Sky Gods, not genetics, not time separating them. 

Certainly not the omnipresent thoughts of an Egg. 

**_Hush. You chose him, and I have given him to you. It's been almost two full lunar cycles since you joined us, I figured that you deserved a present._ **

For the second time that day, Techno wasn't sure if he was about to throw up or burst into tears. He didn't have enough food in his stomach to throw up anything but bile, and he didn't want to waste the little water that he still had inside of him on tears. Wilbur was so much more than a present, so much more than just a thing that the Egg could keep.

**_Is he?_ **

The sickness coursing through him gave way to burning anger. The Egg had forced the question into his mind, had forced him to think (for even just the barest of moments) of his brother as something less than a human. 

He wished that his arms, his hands, even just his fingers were free so he could rip and tear the Egg apart.

**_Ungrateful_ ** .

For once, the Egg showed what had to be something closer to its true power. The word was almost branded inside of his mind, wiping out any other thought or action and Techno could feel his breathing stutter and shut off. Breath came in short spurts, like someone was applying alternating pressure onto his windpipe and only allowing him to barely puff air in and out. 

Techno found himself shuddering hard afterwards, even when he could think on his own. There was no resurgence of the voices, not even a small smattering of letters and miscellaneous chatter that usually rose up after an intrusion.

It was almost silent, if not for the newly present sound of guitar music.

It was  _ La Jolla _ still, their father's favorite song, and Techno almost wanted to sink into a memory. It wouldn't do any good, it would probably do the  _ opposite _ of good to lose himself at the moment.

The sudden emptiness of his mind was jarring, almost terrifying (it had been a decade since he had a quiet mind, an empty mind). He almost wanted to lean into the music and let it wash him away, let himself just have one happy memory (and forget about the corpse and the mangled fingers and the flowers and the flowers and the flowers).

Techno was asleep before he even realized that he was slipping.

The dream is in the far too distant past again. Wilbur's ears had fins encircling them, his hair tugged a little too far down over his newly orange eyes, and his fingers still had webbing in between them. It made playing the guitar a little harder (Techno had seen Wilbur practice over and over with his new fingers), but Wilbur was determined.

_ You know it takes a lot to move me _

_ So if you figure it, tell me _

_ I trace figures on your smile lines _

_ Work a formula to cure me? _


	7. Deep Down In The Ground With The Roots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from "Angry Too" by Lola Blanc

Techno wasn't sure when he decided that he would stop waiting for a rescue. It had to have come after Wilbur’s appearance, but other than that he had no solid clue. Time passed oddly, shifting in between waking and dreaming. The only thing that was constant was his brother, his own face mirrored back at him.

He would wake up after various dreams and memories that weren't quite right, and he would see Wilbur there. Fingers poised in preparation for another twisted serenade, for whatever memory of his brother's talent passed through his mind. It was more than a little horrifying, especially when Techno would allow himself to think of his brother's voice.

It didn't take long for him to figure out that Wilbur's vocal cords had disintegrated. All that came out was brief puffs of air and petals from the same lilies covering the rest of him. Maybe that was for the best, Techno really didn't think that he could handle hearing his brother's voice (his actual voice, not the pale imitation of it that Ghostbur had).

The thought of hearing his brother's voice was enough to jolt him out of the stupor that the sight of the corpse shocked him into. Well, both the thought and the glimmer of something far too familiar in Wilbur's boot. His brother was still dressed in the clothes he died in, including his stupid thigh high boots with far too many buckles and zippers than could possibly be functional. 

Sticking out of the top, close enough to reach, was the hilt of a golden dagger.  It rested a little far away to grab easily, but was still probably within arm's reach if he struggled for it.

Of course, he couldn't just yank the knife out and panic his way to a successful escape. That had worked well in bedwars, but absolutely wouldn't here. There was a full cult that he would have to potentially fight his way through, and he was running on weeks-months, really-without food.

(Two lunar cycles, that's what the Egg told him. He had no way of verifying if that was true, especially not since he was always given the same sort of syrupy nectar that seemed to be keeping him alive.)

Bad would be the most difficult of them to fight past. He had his strange demon abilities as well as the Egg's power backing him up. He was a good fighter (Techno had heard rumors that he had taken Dream down before), not on Techno's level but still good. 

Though, that was assuming that Techno still had all of his skills. The Egg only stretched his far-too heavy feeling arms every so often.

The thought of his skill leaving him because he couldn't move on his own was...disquieting, to say the least.

(It felt like the first time Wilbur had come home, strange and aquatic and far too manic for anyone's good. He didn't have control over his aura of mining fatigue, and Techno spent a month feeling like his bones were made of lead inside of him. 

Techno would’ve traded this situation for that one in a heartbeat.

Maybe that was just because it was Wilbur.)

Skeppy wasn't a problem. Even if the man could stand up to him, he was kept far away. At least, that's what Techno had picked up from Bad’s ramblings. Skeppy was out of commission, and even if he wasn't, Techno wasn't particularly scared of the diamond skinned man. Sure he was resilient to damage, but he was also easily tricked.

(Techno had tricked him many times in the past. Once, in the sky, when they were both a part of a quick terrifying challenge organized by the Sky Gods. And again, when he wanted his horse to be rescued but absolutely did not want to be the person doing it. 

Even with the information that he was under the influence of the Egg Cult, Techno hoped that he was doing okay.)

There was Antfrost as well, the strange humanoid cat with far too much magic at his fingertips (pawtips? clawtips? It wasn't really important). Another Hunter, another person who was far too good at tracking people down and subduing them. (Before everything that happened, he heard tales of the magician mixing potions so potent that they could kill you in seconds.) 

Techno would be cautious. Techno wasn't planning on losing even one of his lives. Not to a furry.

(Not even if the anthropomorphic siamese had power that Techno couldn't even think about, powers that he wouldn't have a chance to block. He knew how swords worked, knew how blades and axes and garrotes worked. Magic escaped him; it was incomprehensible and terrifying and he wasn't sure if he could beat Ant in a fight. In a fair fight, no tricks, it would be easy. But Ant wouldn't fight fair.)

Those three had been the ones to actually take him, and Techno wasn't even sure if that was the extent of the Eggpire's reach. For all he knew there could be dozens of people waiting for him, and while that wouldn't be an issue previously...he wasn't sure if he was exactly up to scruff anymore.

**_Stay, sleep, calm._ **

The Egg had been mostly quiet since Wilbur had shown up, and Techno's waking hours (brief though they were) were filled with the slowly improving sounds of guitar. He hoped it was just because no one had been feeding it, that every single person that the Egg had tried bringing in (he couldn't think their names he couldn't think of them) had escaped.

He knew that he was in New L'Manburg, he was still mostly cognizant and aware of himself as he was dragged through the Nether portal. Where, he wasn't sure, especially after the destruction that reigned on Doomsday, but it was somewhere that wasn't entirely exploded.

The cave was too enclosed for that; the destruction that he, Phil, Dream, had reigned on New L'Manburg was utter and complete. 

(Techno braced himself for the onslaught of taunting that the voices gave him, but there was nothing but his brother's music.)

It had to be outside the borders, or maybe just covered up well.

Techno's ear flicked as a new sound was suddenly introduced. Voices, both above him as well as far in front of him. Someone was either coming in to feed the Egg, or they had found someone else. He had never actually been awake for the Egg getting fed, always had been drifting in between dream and memory and nightmare, only to wake up with an oppressive voice speaking in his mind.

"I'm just saying- I'm just saying  _ Ant _ -'' it was Bad, his voice was as reedy as Techno remembered it- "there's no way that Techno won't be loving the Egg at this point. No one's withstood two months!"

Well, at least that confirmed how long that he had been there, with the added bonus of boosting his ego. No one else had the strength to resist the Egg, and Techno really doubted that the Egg tried this hard with anyone else.

The Egg absolutely didn't get anyone else's dead twin brother for them.

"It's still Technoblade, we have no clue what he's capable of. The Egg's been keeping him alive, we would know if he was dead, but we have no clue what we're going to be getting into here," Ant's voice was a little less familiar, but still obvious from context clues.

It seemed like everything was coming up Technoblade.

The rock wall in front of him crumbled, and he instinctively shut his eyes and cringed away from the sudden influx of light. His sight somehow got even more red, black spots appearing on the back of his eyelids as he heard two sets of footsteps approach him.

"See, he's fine. I bet he's docile-" Bad hummed out, footsteps coming closer before stopping immediately- "Oh my god."

"What? Is he- Oh  _ shit _ ." Ant's voice ended in a yelp as Techno tried to sift through everything that could have caused such a reaction.

Did he look more emaciated than he was? Had his hair bleached to the same off-white that Bad's cloak had?

It took a shamefully long time before Techno realized they probably had just noticed the corpse of his twin brother. Had he really gotten to that point, where he saw the corpse of his twin as nothing more than part of the hellscape? His heart ached. He would have to handle the guilt of dehumanizing his brother later.

Once he escaped, he could give Wilbur a proper funeral. A proper Piglin funeral so that he could finally be put to rest.    
  
Techno would do it, even if it meant that the strange remnants of his brother would disappear forever. 

It was what he deserved, after all, no matter what crimes he had committed. He deserved it.

The shock and horror of the two cultists would be useful; it would make them distracted and unsuspecting, allowingTechno to get the knife out of his brother's boot and cut away the vines. 

He was strong, and two months couldn't change that. (It could, but he would not let himself think of it). He was used to cutting through muscle and bone with weapons a lot more unwieldy. 

The pain in his eyes faded and he let his eyes slit open- not enough for them to notice that he was awake, but enough for him to see. Bad and Ant were in front of Wilbur, awkwardly perched on the vines straddling the floor, and Techno had to bite down on his tongue to stop from growling. 

They were no better than the Egg, placing their hands on Wilbur's body and turning his head to examine him -treating him like just another object in the room.

Techno bit down on the inside of his cheek again. There would be time to bury Wilbur (time to make them regret bringing him) once he escaped and got to Phil. 

The pair were deep in conversation, talking over Wilbur's head as Bad's hand tilted his chin up. They weren't paying attention to him, and Ant's legs were awkwardly straddled over the vines, wide enough that he could see the glimmer of the knife. 

Ant spoke up, and Techno took his chance.

The magician was barely through the first syllable of whatever bullshit he was about to say when Techno's arm lashed out and grabbed the knife. As he yanked it back to the vines trapping him, Techno let the blade switch in his hand and swiped the blade across his leg.

Pain was a distraction, and Techno took the chance to cut away at the vines trapping his arms. The Egg was weak, having gone however long between feedings had made the bright crimson fade to a far lighter color. 

Besides. Wilbur always kept his knives sharp, especially towards the end.

Paranoia made his brother alien and strange, but it made him prepared. When he came back from the Sky Gods, he was strange and changed, but he had never been truly alien. There was always a sense of  _ pack _ , of  _ brother _ , of  _ twin _ . Pogtopia had made him  _ alien _ , in a way that no challenge and no genetic modification ever could.

The knife cut through skin and muscle easily, close to snapping the tendons but not quite. Painful enough, distracting enough, and Techno began to rip through the vines surrounding him. They snapped like old rope, gushing something that wasn't exactly blood or nectar, and Techno forced himself to his feet.

He almost immediately regretted it. After so long of only being barely exercised and stretched, his legs were numb and unsteady underneath him. The feeling of blood rushing through his numbed limbs was disorientating, but Techno had fought under worse circumstances. 

Antfrost was on the ground, muttering to himself as sparks flew from his fingertips towards the bleeding wound. Bad was already whirling around, halo glowing red as he glared at him.

"I see you're awake.” He gave a slightly nervous laugh that didn't fit with the fact that Techno had finally,  _ finally _ escaped. "Well, I'm sure that you're on our side about all of this, so-"

The demon spawn didn't get a chance to respond before Techno's fist made contact with his jaw. It wasn't as strong as it used to be, but it was enough to stun and knock him down on the ground.

"Shut, the fuck up." His voice was dry and cracked, and he swallowed down what little spit was in his throat. The only thing stopping his hand from shaking was his tight grip on his knife. He kept his eyes on the ground, gaze focused on the two Egg-corrupted and not going any higher than the boots of his brother.

"Techno.” Bad's voice was condescending, and far too similar to the Egg. "I don't know why you're fighting this. The Egg can give you your heart's desire- it can give you everything that you want." His voice was thick, something dark and viscous dribbling past his lips (he must have bitten his tongue, or maybe his cheek).

The last time that he had heard Bad sound that condescending was when he was ambushed in his own house. Phil wasn't there, wasn't anywhere near the Arctic and somehow the trio that came for him had to have known that he was alone. Ant had brought potions of weakness that had been mixed with harming, serious magic melding that he had only seen from his brother (Wilbur was always the better of them at potions), and Techno was caught without weapons or armor.

Retirement had gotten him out of practice, and even though he went down with a fight, he still went down.

"I'm going to leave, and I'm going to bring back all of my weapons and my firepower and I'm going to make you regret even looking in my direction.” His chest shook, and the hand not holding the knife closed into a fist. Nails bit into his palm and he centered himself with the pain. "And then I'm going to give my brother a proper burial."

He stumbled away from the Egg, leaving the china doll with a bloodstained guitar to entertain the Egg-Corrupted. He could hear the confusion, but the exact words muddled in his ears and just sounded like  _ noise _ . 

Maybe that was why he didn't hear the far-too heavy footsteps behind him, didn't see the glint of diamond skin turned into garnet.

The next thing he felt was a hard slam into the back of his head, enough to daze but not enough to knock him out. Techno whirled around on unsteady feet, golden dagger poised and ready (and covered in blood and plant gunk), only to experience another hard slam to his jaw. 

It wasn't in the right place to send him into unconsciousness, instead just enough to stun him and send him to the ground. Techno felt a freezing cold hand on his scalp, hair yanked back so he could see his assailant. It was Skeppy, mangled and covered in vines, eyes deep set and empty.

Was this what Bad meant when he said the egg could give them all their heart's desires?

A fist connected with the soft spot of his jaw, and his mind went blank.


	8. We Can't Have You Living A Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from Villainous Thing by Shayfer James

Techno came to awareness embraced in feathers, and wondered if he was actually awake. It had been the same old song and dance before; waking up in a dreamscape before realizing that it was wrong. But this felt a little too real, the ache in his joints too present for it to be an actual dream.

"Phil?" His own voice sounded strange to his ears, like he was hearing himself underwater; played through a broken tape recorder. He kept his eyes shut, savoring the feeling of Phil's wings around him for just a minute more, just a second more.

It had been too long since he had last let himself be properly hugged by his father figure (and a part of him wondered if he would ever get the chance again.) First he had been a teenager (a child), stubborn and independent and wanting to set himself apart from his family and his father. Always the first to end the hugs, always the first to push away and squirm out from underneath large vulture wings. 

Then he had been a warrior, and needed to set himself apart from his family (to protect them, he told them.) Phil could not be his father on Hypixel, he could only be a companion, a friend, an “old war buddy". All hugs were brushed off with a warning stare, replaced with handshakes and nudges up against shoulders and familial relationships swallowed down.

Then he had been a proper adult, and he wasn't exactly a fan of physical comfort. Too much scar tissue, too many aches and pains that kept acting up no matter what sort of potions he put on them.

But now, with the feeling of feathers wrapped around him, Techno realized that he should've hugged his father more.

"Phil," he repeated, sure that it was his father. No one else had vulture wings like him, no one else made him feel as safe as he did. Techno had to apologize, and hug back (even though his arms felt heavy and limp at his sides.)

He opened his eyes, expecting to see the soft grey undersides of his father's wings, and was only met with red.

**_Why must you still chase after them, Darling Prince? Your old family should mean nothing to you. They left you here. They left you where you belong. Why waste energy on them?_ **

Techno wished that he could repeat his escape attempt, but it was impossible. Wilbur had been moved, no longer constantly in his peripheral vision, his twin was now constantly directly across from him. All metal had been removed from him, as well as his trench coat. Wilbur looked strange, small in a way he hadn't since it was just the two of them in the Nether, without his coat. Without any of the presence that he had in life, any of the larger than life persona that Wilbur constantly exuded.

He seemed small, fragile, like one slight tremor of the earth would send him falling to the ground and shattering into a million pieces. 

(Somewhere, in Techno's starvation addled brain, he remembered some old nursery rhyme about never being able to put something back together again. He had to bite down on his tongue to stop from cackling drily.)

**_This is the version of your brother that won't leave you. Why must you still be so attached to those that leave?_ **

Any and all humor disappeared as the Egg spoke again. He tried the trick of distracting himself with pain, but the vines kept his hands flat. Unable to curl his fingers, unable to dig his nails into his palms until he was calm. If he let himself forget where he was (a choice that was getting more and more dangerous by the day), he could almost trick himself into thinking that the pressure around his wrists were his bracers.

That was, of course, if he ignored the constant moving of the vines. The constant slithering, like he had gotten trapped in a pit of snakes, and how every so often the bones of his wrist would shift and pop as the vines tightened and loosened. Just slightly irregular enough for Techno to always jolt at the sensation.

**_Stop ignoring me, Darling Prince._ **

"I-'' Techno broke off into a harsh cough, despising the feeling of his dry vocal cords rubbing together- "I figured that if you're just going to try to make me angry, it's best to ignore you." A dry laugh left his lips, painful and rough but it was a laugh. "My family loved me-"

**_Tommy used you as a weapon, Wilbur said it didn't matter what you did so long as you helped him, your father killed your twin._ **

"You're contradicting yourself. If I shouldn't care about Wilbur, why should I care that Phil killed him?" It was a little smug. A complete following the words to their letter instead of their meaning. Techno didn't really care, though, he was tired of people telling him how he should feel about those he called family.

Even if the Egg wasn't entirely wrong, it didn't understand his history. All it saw were the worst deeds that any of his family had committed against him, without understanding why exactly Techno still cared for them.

(In the Egg’s defense, Techno wasn't always sure why he still cared for them either.)

"Besides." His eyes flicked to the corpse in the corner. "Rather hypocritical for you to get angry at me for being attached to Wilbur when you got him for me." 

The words tasted like bile on his tongue, and he wished that there was any way to say it nicer. Any way to obfuscate the fact that the Egg treated his twin brother like an object to be gifted.

**_No one else has shown up. No one else has tried to find you. The specter does not remember, but the specter drifts by._ **

The thought that his brother's spirit (fractured and splinted though it was) had been looking for him for the past two months hurt somewhere deep in his chest. 

He had never stopped looking for Wilbur's body; it was only right that Wilbur never stopped looking for his.

"Why go that far, anyway? It's not like I asked you to-" and here, a laugh with no humor behind it, "-to get my brother's corpse for me."

**_A debt is always paid, and your ancestor made a deal uneven. I have to repay him._ **

"What- ancestor?" Techno didn't know a lot about his biological family, from his earliest memory it had always just been Wilbur and him. His other family members had never been there; no Piglin family ever was. 

It had always just been the two of them.

**_Your family was in the Overworld for a generation before you and the Guardian were even a thought in your parents eyes. Your ancestor helped me, and now I help him in return. As he kept me safe, I will keep you._ **

Techno knew that he hated his birth family, but this was a new level of fucking his life up in absentia. Movement in front of him distracted him, and he caught the not-gaze of his brother. Wilbur's face was still covered in vines, wrapping around his eyes and crawling out of the hole in his cheek. It was beautiful, morbidly so, and it brought a question to the forefront of his mind.

"What about Wilbur? He's here, yeah, but you don't seem to actually care about him." His brother's body was kept intact in the same way embalming a corpse preserved it. The same sort of unnatural half life that kept Wilbur from rotting kept him from looking even slightly alive. 

**_The Guardian has been claimed. He is not entirely Billiam's descendent anymore, no longer entirely included in the deal made. The Sky Gods have a claim upon him, and I am unable to do for him what I am able to do for you._ **

(Techno wondered when the Egg had stopped referring to Wilbur by his name, and when it had started to use the title that the Sky Gods had given him.)

Techno's breath hitched in his throat, having the worst year of his life being used as an excuse to ignore his brother. That just by being taken (being kidnapped) by Those In The Sky was enough to keep Wilbur from counting as his brother (as his twin.) People didn't think they were twins, just because Wilbur hid all of his hybrid attributes (especially the parts of him that had been changed), and people thought that it was a joke.

People always thought it was a joke; no way that the feared Blood God of Hypixel could have anything in common with a soft-hearted, brown-haired musician from a private server home. No way that the winged man and his hybrid son were anything but rabid fans of the Blade, no way that they had anything further than a parasocial relationship with everyone's favorite murderer. 

It was safer that way, so much safer if everyone thought that his brother was just a stranger. That his twin was just another face in the crowd instead of the face that Techno always looked for, instead of the face that was mirrored back at him in every single reflection. 

"He’s my twin." It felt like a confession. It was the first time in over a decade that Techno had said it aloud. 

Wilbur Soot was his twin, had always been his twin, and will always be his twin. 

"He...was my twin," he amended.

Like most things involving his family, it was too little too late. Techno's twin was a preserved corpse that had gotten far too close in the time that Techno spent conversing with the Egg. The movement that the corpse ( _ Wilbur _ , the weaponized part of him wailed) made was stilted at best.

Shambling, just like the horrible old zombie movies that Phil would sometimes put on to entertain the two of them before Tommy had come along. They weren't movies for kids, not really, but Phil let them watch anyway. The zombies moved just like Wilbur did, slouched and slanted like a drunk person. Shambling, with no feeling to tell when their foot hit the ground.

Soon enough the body ( _ his _ body, his Wilbur's body) slumped right next to him.

**_But you? You are the perfect descendant. You look so much like him. And I am not foolish, I know that humans- and hybrids- can't be really happy when kept alone forever._ **

There was something in the Egg's tone that made it sound like it wished it wasn't true. That Techno could be content and complacent and kept completely isolated from other people. 

**_You deserve it. You deserve all the wonderful gifts of the world. You remind me so much of Sir Billiam, Darling Prince, such a perfect recreation. Down to your genetics even!_ **

"Wilbur isn't a gift." The words were almost bitten out, a low rasp in the back of his throat, and he stiffened up as he felt a hand (human hand with just the barest bit of scale on the fingertips) gently run over the top of his hair. Techno kept his eyes stubbornly ahead of him, away from the red tinted body next to him.

**_Yes he is. The Sky God's Champion is one of the best gifts I could give you at the moment, but don't worry. You'll get better ones in the future._ **

Something ached inside of Techno's chest.

He had had his fair share of being thought of as a gift, as a present, as the crown jewel of some bastard who owned a fighting ring. Techno was mostly a weapon, an object that could be traded in place of debts and put into a ring with people so much bigger and stronger and older than him. 

Techno was always the one to exit those rings, covered in blood and gore and shaking. His twin and father were never in the crowd for those types of fights, never knew that he had even gotten caught up in them in the first place. They thought that he was doing the clean stuff, the public stuff, in Hypixel.

Bedwars, sky tournaments (always so very close to Those that took Wilbur), survival games. Things that were televised and put out for the public to enjoy. They didn't know that he had to work up to that level, that the Blood God of Hypixel got his start doing dirty fights in equally dirty rings.

Techno was tired of being treated like an object. He had retired to the tundra for a reason (even if he had stayed on the server, even if he had stayed because maybe he had hoped for their broken family.) No one could treat him like an object if he was alone (except his father, but Phil had always been one of two exceptions to the rule.)

And now he was trapped, underground (he remembered being buried alive, once, as a training measure), and treated like an object again. Not a blade, but an heirloom.

Which was worse? To be treated like a weapon of destruction, like a mindless beast that killed anything put in front of it. Or to be treated like a priceless heirloom, like he had to be kept in mint condition and far away from anyone or anything that could chip it.

"Wilbur is my  _ brother _ , he isn't some- gift that you can give me. He's my  _ twin _ , if I'm Billiam's descendent then so is he." Techno's hands trembled inside of the vines wrapping around them, only barely twitching at the feeling of the vine forcing movement. His wrist popped, his breath caught in his throat and stayed there even as the vine dislocated his wrist.

It was a show of power, that's all it was, and Techno tasted copper as he bit down on his tongue.

**_Delicate things, so very delicate. We can't be having you get hurt._ **

Which twin was the China doll, Techno or Wilbur?


	9. Will You Forget About Your Love For Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter title from Canary in a Coal Mine by The Crane Wives

The Egg had gone suspiciously silent after their argument (if it could even be called that), and Techno was left in almost complete silence. Almost, if not for the guitar playing.

Techno had started referring to the corpse as Corpsebur. Not completely dehumanizing the body, but it wasn't his brother.  If it was dead, unmoving, and silent, then maybe Techno could consider it his brother, still. Whatever sick puppet that the Egg had turned his brother into, this wasn't him. 

His Wilbur was warm, blindingly so, and Corpsebur was constantly freezing to the touch. Techno knew that for a fact, he knew that the only source of warmth in the corpse of his brother came from the plant material. His fingers pulsed with a sort of half life, out of time with everything except for the Egg.

**_I have given him back his skill, Darling Prince. I know you enjoy the music that he brings. Why do you not admit it?_ **

"How many fucking times do I have to tell you?" The words scraped against his dry throat as he tried to stretch his neck. "You've given him none of his skill back, and considering that you're not the best at guitar yourself, it's nothing like him."

That was what it all boiled down to, wasn't it? It wasn’t him, it would never be him again and Techno's fallible human memory would eventually forget what the music actually sounded like. Wilbur's talent had long left him, unable to be captured even with the slowly fine tuning control that the Egg had. Maybe, if Techno was being a little fantastical, the talent had left with his spirit.

**_Why do you not appreciate my gifts? Is he not enough for you?_ **

Techno shut his mouth. As much as he hated the sight of his brother's body, as much as he hated the fact that he was yearning to be alone, he didn't want to see what else the Egg would get him. He didn't want to show any more signs of sincere, hard dissatisfaction (the memory of thinking that he was surrounded by Phil's feathers was enough to make him clear his mind).

(When had his family become the weapon, and when had that weapon been turned against him?)

"He's enough," was what he verbalized. Wilbur had been (always would be) enough, but this wasn't exactly Wilbur. Wilbur was always enough for Techno, and he would never be there again. Wilbur (his brother, the one who encouraged him to play the violin if only so they could create something together) was dead, and he would always be dead.

But even a corpse was better than anyone living being pulled into the grasp of the Egg.

"He's enough."

The Egg went silent, and Techno was left alone. Wilbur had been shuffled closer over the course of a few forays into sleep, and it was disturbing. For Techno to open his eyes and see that his brother's corpse had moved closer still, shifted far enough closer to be noticeable.

Techno cringed at the feeling of the vines shifting, shoulders tensing up as he felt the smaller offshoots tighten around his joints. There was the far too familiar feeling of limbs being manipulated without his will, muscles shifting as the Egg tugged and prodded.

**_You really have not been taking care of yourself. You're so delicate, Techno._ **

It was a phrase that Techno was used to hearing combined with one that he had never heard before.

No one had ever told him that he was delicate, no one had ever looked at him and saw someone that needed protection. Almost no one, but even then his family never saw him as delicate. Phil saw him as a child, and somehow wasn't condescending about it. When Phil looked at him, he saw a child who had been fighting for too long and hard to protect his brother rather than have a childhood of his own. Wilbur was his brother, and as much as he was sick as a kid he always wanted to protect Techno back.

Phil was a parent; he saw two children wandering in the Crimson Forests and took them in. He taught Techno how to wrap his own wounds and never minded when Techno would ask him to do it (or rather, wordlessly shove the bandage rolls into his arm and point angrily at the wound). He was careful with them, and then their world began to dissolve around them.

When Wilbur was taken and Phil ran himself ragged trying to find him, Techno took things upon himself to find his twin. That's how he came to Hypixel. That's how he became The Blood God.

(No one on Hypixel saw him as delicate. They saw the hulking form and the mass of furs and the bone mask, and they feared him. He was feared on Hypixel, no one ever feared for him. Almost no one).

Phil had come back for him (of course he did, and he would again), and he was already in the legal rings at that point. No underground fighting clubs, no dirty rings with dirtier rules, just well lit arenas with regularly cleaned sand. Large spotlights followed his every action, thousands of people watched him in person, and millions more watched him on streams.

It was almost horrifying, coming into his personal rooms and seeing his father standing there. Techno had been covered in blood (if he let himself dwell on memories, he could still feel the chafe of dried blood on his tunic), and it had been one of the legal fights, too. Techno hadn't killed that day, hadn't even gotten close, but Phil still stared at him with such strong sadness in his eyes.

_ "Oh, Techno, mate....you really have to take better care of yourself,"  _ Phil had said, one hand coming to rest on Techno's lower back as the other gently pushed both parts of his skull mask off his face.

After the blood had been cleaned from his clothes and his face and his fists, Phil had told him that Wilbur had been found.

(Techno doesn't think that he'd ever forget the sort of glow that had shone in his father's eyes, that was the only time that Phil had actually scared him.)

He didn't know how to handle the way that their family had changed after that. Phil was a strange mix of overbearing and estranged, always worrying over Wilbur and Techno at the same time as he pushed them both away. The way that Wilbur laughed too loud and too bright at things that weren't funny, the way that he curled up around himself every night after a nightmare.

(Techno wondered if anything would have changed if he had stayed at home instead of going back to Hypixel, or if he had gone to Phil as a son instead of a co-emperor.)

**_You're ignoring me again. You know I don't like it when you do that._ **

He much preferred this sort of condescending parental tone when Phil was using it. At least then he knew that it came from a place of love. Even if he wasn't exactly the best, he was Techno's dad nonetheless and he knew that his dad at least was trying his best. That's all Phil ever did, no matter how it turned out in the end.

**_Then would you prefer this?_ **

Technoblade went still, eyes flying open as Phil's voice rang through his mind. 

It wasn't him, it couldn't have been. Phil wasn't anywhere near him and even if he was then- well then he would actually be hearing the words. The Egg only spoke in his mind, Phil didn't have that power. Still, his eyes opened and he turned his head around.

The room was empty, almost entirely (if not for the body). There was no one there, and no one had come to save him. 

(Wasn't that better? It meant that Phil wasn't anywhere close to the Egg and it wasn't going to get his dad.)

"I really wouldn't," he bit out, resisting the urge to grind his teeth together (a full childhood of his being spent with Phil chiding him on the state of his tusks). 

**_You seem to trust this voice. Your stress levels lower and your brain chemistry levels out. It would probably be for the best if I continue to use this voice._ **

Hearing Phil's voice be so clinical and cool (not cold, but not warm - a degree of separation that was unfamiliar) wasn't an experience that he wanted to repeat. 

"Don't."

Vines began to climb over his arms, tying him down further against the Egg itself. In between a cycle of half correct memories and dreams, Techno had been dragged closer to the Egg. Probably had something to do with his escape attempt (or the fact that he actually fed the voices), or with the fact that he needed more 'minding'.

The Egg was warm against his back in a horrifically familiar way. Dragging him back to memories that he wanted to stay hidden, Techno could feel the weight of sleep on his eyelids.

He should probably be more concerned about the fact that he spent so much of his time asleep, but he couldn't muster up the energy.

It seemed to be a solid memory, which was good at first but always put Techno on edge. There was always a sword of Damocles about it, the fact that any change could be used against him. Any inconsistency could be broken into and it would turn into another nightmare of crimson and vines and death. 

The memory had to be an old one. Everything was tinted with an almost sepia tone of nostalgia. They were in the old house, before it burned down in a horrible accident that was technically their fault (even if it was for the best, because that was how they found Tommy). As much as Techno had conflicting feelings on Tommy, he knew that Wilbur loved the kid to death.

That alone was enough.

"Dad," Wilbur whined, in the sort of tone that he would always use when he wanted something, "Can you read us another story?"

"Wil." Phil sighed as he curled his wings around the two of them. "I just told you a story, it's time for you two to go to bed." He gently flicked him on the nose (the snout, they had to be true children because Wilbur was still just a piglin).

"I dunno, Dad." Techno grinned, shifting to rest his head against Phil's collarbone as he looked up at him. "I'm still wide awake. I bet if you told us another story, then I'd fall asleep right here."

"What, and trap your old man on the couch for the rest of the night? Kid, my back's bad enough..." Phil laughed. He was a man who loved to laugh, in the way that made Wilbur cheer and Techno settle down. It was the sort of laugh he did whenever he was giving up, when he had been bested by two eight year olds (couldn't be older than ten, if Techno was still calling him Dad). 

"Can you tell one of my favorites?" Wilbur pleaded, eyes wide and watery (Techno knew that he could cry on command, but Phil hadn't yet figured it out). His hands fisted in Phil's shirt as he yanked on it slightly, head resting on the other shoulder. "Happy ending, please."

"If you tell one with a happy ending, I'm not going to be able to sleep," Techno replied, just to be contrary. 

"Ah...you're really tying my hands here." Phil's wings crowded them a little closer, his arms wrapping around them and adjusting them. "Alright, how about one of those myths that you love so much? It's going to be bittersweet, can we please agree on that?"

"Mhmm." Techno frowned, shifting up to catch his twin in the eyes. There was just enough exhaustion in them for him to nod. "Agreed."

Wilbur didn't verbally respond, just hummed his own agreement as he curled up tighter to their father. His ears were flopped down, tail just barely looping around and curling against Techno's. 

"Alright, there we go," Phil's voice was a soft hum, and he pressed a gentle kiss to each of their foreheads, "Now, long ago, there was a king with only one daughter, and back in those days everyone was going to an oracle in Delphi in order to find out their future."

"That's stupid, who would ever want to know their future? That's how everyone gets fucked over-"

Phil breathed in sharply. "Wil- that's not a good word, don't swear." A gentle sweep of his wing over his son's head. "Anyway- if you want the story then you're going to have to be polite and stay quiet. Now, do you want me to finish the story, or are you going to talk the entire way through?"

Wilbur pouted, but shook his head. One of his hands (small and unscarred and pudgy with youth) reached across to hold Techno's, a slight squeeze connecting them.

"Thank you," Phil hummed, settling back with the resignation of a father who knows he's not going to be moving from the couch, "So King Acrisius- the king with only one daughter- goes to the Oracle of Delphi, and he asks her what his future will be. He’s warned that he will be killed by his daughter's son, and so he resolves to never allow her to marry."

Wilbur opens his mouth to interrupt, to say some smart aleck phrase that would get Phil sighing and going off on an unrelated tangent that would just keep them up later.

But Techno liked the story of Perseus, liked the story of a son's love for his mother being enough to get him to agree to an impossible task. So he squeezed his brother's hand and-

The memory evaporated around him, and his eyes opened to nothing but red.

He could feel vines around his face, and he couldn't see anything past the solid red covering his eyes. 

**_Would you like me to continue the story? I believe it is very apt. A precious child, kept in a golden room to keep her safe? Very much like you, Darling Prince._ **

Phil's voice in his head was more than horrifying, and Techno had to center himself with the untouched memory.

(Was it untouched? Was Phil's voice an octave or two off? Had the Egg changed something that Techno couldn't easily verify?)

"I think you've- completely misunderstood the intention behind King Arcrisius putting Danae in the brass tower. It wasn't to keep her safe, it was to keep her imprisoned."

He remembered how the rest of the story went. How Zeus poured himself through the grate at the very top and impregnated her, how she was put into a golden box to drown.

And of course, how her son eventually struck his grandfather down with a stray discus.

There was a lesson inside of that, and Techno wondered exactly what corresponded with what. 

He had the stray thought of Tommy picking Wilbur up and launching him into the Egg, and laughed. His throat was raw still, and the laugh sounded worse to his own ears.

The vines around him (they were vines, he had to keep that in mind) almost felt like feathers. He clung to the almost, to the fact that the Egg hadn't been paying enough attention in the memories to actually copy the feeling. Feathers were soft, but they were slightly rough to the touch and so much colder than the Egg's vines.

Phil was full of warmth, but it certainly wasn't body heat. He was almost always cold, even if his loud laughter and louder acts of love were nothing but warm, and he was always just slightly cooler than either Techno or Wilbur. The best body temperature to fall asleep next to, which was why it was easy for Techno to stay awake with the Egg.

The Egg reminded him of the Nether, back when he was just a kid in the Crimson Forests, and it was easy to stay awake with the memories. Memories of having to take shifts to sleep, of constant paranoia and checking over his shoulder whenever Wilbur was sleeping on the ground. He wasn't exactly alert (not with the syrup that he had been fed a total of eight times now), but he was as on guard as he could be.

Good enough for him. He had to stay on guard and ignore the fact that Wilbur- Corpsebur- was closer now. He wondered, for a brief and horrible second, if it was only the fact that Wilbur's throat had decayed and destroyed that he wasn't speaking. That, if not, he would have had to listen to a horrible, puppeted mockery of his brother's voice.

He couldn't see the corpse, not with the vines wrapped around his face, but he could hear that the music was closer now. A far-too-warm hand (covered in plant matter and not skin with no calluses from playing guitar it wasn't his brother's hand) reaching over to hold Techno's hand and give it a slight squeeze.

(He tells himself that it's only the recent memory-dream and muscle memory that makes him squeeze back.)


	10. You'll Move Along More Easily

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Chapter Title from "For The Departed" By Shayfer James

Wilbur- Corpsebur, Corpsebur it wasn't his brother it was just the empty shell left behind- was close enough that Techno could feel his weight against the plant matter. Close enough that, if he could, he would hear him breathing.

Corpses didn't need to breathe, and Corpsebur was no different. There was no movement from the weight next to him; his brother was still unless his fingers were moving across the frets. It was almost constant, just one melody drifting into another, and another, and another.

But still, it was better to talk to the air (to the imagined presence of his brother) than to talk to the Egg. At least he wasn't expecting an answer, at least the Egg never attempted to answer back with his brother's voice. 

"I missed you, you know?" He hummed, head leaned back against the Egg as he tried to ignore the pounding in his skull. "Never really stopped missing you. I know that you were always planning on dying but- god I wish you didn't. I wish you'd just let us win, for once Wil. We never won before, and yeah, they were making a government, and yeah, I hate that sort of shit, but-"

He broke off into a coughing fit, flecks of something hitting his hand as he curled up and covered his mouth. It took a few seconds for his breathing to go back to normal, and he inhaled heavily through his nose and out through his mouth. The air was rough against his throat.

The Egg was silent, and his brother's playing faded into occasional plucks of the strings.

If Techno let himself lean into a delusion, he could pretend that Wilbur was listening.

"-I would've left. I would've gone to the tundra, and you could've come with me. And it could've been like old times with just us and dad, but you had to go and get yourself killed. You couldn't just win." A rough laugh left his lips, rougher still after hacking up a lung, and he blindly shook his head. "You couldn't just win."

His brother was thankfully silent (no false promises, no lovely lies of what Wilbur could've done or would've done if he had only known). The Egg was silent, but Techno could feel a building pressure behind his eyes. 

His shoulders slumped down further, and his head lolled.

"I just-" Techno sighed out, fresh from a dream that barely seemed to stop or start- "You were always the best of us, Wil. Even as a stupid, sickly kid, you still were the best." He wished that his brother was there (for a brief horrible moment) if only to hear him complain at getting insulted.

He missed that, those little things that Wilbur would always nitpick at. How he would always refute the idea that he was a sickly kid, even though he was one. Wilbur never seemed to get healthy for the first few years of their lives, always shifting in and out of some sickness or another.

Phil was the only reason that Wilbur survived into adulthood (and wasn't that ironic?).

He had come for blaze rods and magma cream and he left with two sons. Techno remembered the day like it was yesterday, mostly because he'd never forget Philza's expression of pure fear as Wilbur jumped on his back and started clawing at his eyes. 

"I'm sorry," he repeated again, almost breathing the words out as he stared at the red covering his eyes. It had to be the hundredth time he said it, speaking it out to no one because there was no one to listen. "I should have stopped you, I should have followed you, I should have..."

The words trailed off, and Techno slumped forward. Talking took much out of him, even when he tried to force himself to keep speaking.

Sometimes he spoke to Chat (who were quiet but still sometimes there), sometimes he spoke his regrets out to the air like someone could forgive him. 

He spoke to Wilbur the most.

_Technosoft!_

_technocare!_

_Take my energy!_

_make a fucking omelette_

_L_

_F_

_F_

_Tell us another story_

_yeah come on stop falling asleep!_

_it better be a Greek myth or I'm not donating_

_finish the story!_

_yesss, tell us about Medusa!_

Chat was quiet, and no one ever mentioned the Egg. There were less voices as well; no longer a constant rolling wave of thousands and thousands of screams, instead it was a calm lake. No one ever said a contrary thought, or a thought against the Egg; it was all mindless chatter and conversations bouncing civilly.

In other words, it was nothing like Chat at all. 

"Hey, Wil," he said, easily with a voice that no longer felt like sandpaper rubbing against his throat, "do you want to hear the story of Perseus?"

There was no reply but a gentle chord procession leading into a major key. It's as good as he'll get.

(It wasn't him, it wasn't his brother replying to him, it wasn't a show of a listening, sympathetic ear. It was the sign that the Egg had gotten better at puppetry.)

Call it an unhealthy coping mechanism, call it a stubborn refusal to acknowledge the truth, but Techno shoved the thought to the side.

"So as Danae lay in the tower, staring up at the sky through the grate in the ceiling..."

Techno does not always dream, and that is often a blessing.

(Not always does not mean often, often does not mean always.)

It started out as a memory, as always, and Techno grimaced at the reminder of what happened. Wilbur had gotten hurt, had gotten hurt bad enough that Techno was terrified and concerned if he was even going to live to the next day. He had fallen while they were on their way to a new Bastion, hoping to find a place that they could actually live in, and Wilbur had fallen.

They weren't old enough to have known Phil, they weren't young enough to have their original sounder. Techno was the stronger twin at the time (at every time), and he carried his brother to a pit in the delta. Natural walls built high enough around them that a magma cube couldn't get the drop on them, but not high enough that they wouldn't be able to get out.

Techno had settled Wilbur against one of the walls, feelings kept under a tight clamp because if he let himself focus on the fact that his twin's pink hair was slowly getting covered in red.

"Wilbur," he said, going through the motions if only to remind himself of a time that he had actually saved him, "I need you to keep your eyes open, okay? Talk to me."

Wilbur's eyes fluttered, gaze focusing between the wall and Techno, "Hurts..."

"I know it does, you just gotta keep awake. Talk to me, Wil." He pressed their foreheads together, ignoring the tackiness of drying blood on his skin, "You were writing that story, weren't you? Tell me how it ends."

Wilbur's mouth opened, but it wasn't his voice that came out, **_Darling Prince, I thought you didn't like it when I spoke to you._ **

The dream wouldn't end, not like it normally did when things went wrong. Techno pushed away from his not-brother, and stared into the eyes of a rotting corpse.

It wasn't the corpse that was usually there, this was the corpse of his brother as a child. Far too small to be powerful, far too small to be worthy of being kept in a sounder. Far too small to be dead.

His mouth moved, horrifically puppeted by an Egg that wasn't supposed to be there, **_You keep sleeping. You're wasting all of the effort that I put into getting you your twin. You don't need memories to have your brother. All you have to do is wake up._ **

His eyes snapped open, and his brother (older, sadder, but still far too small to be dead) was sitting right next to him. Corpsebur's skin was pinker, probably an effect of the Egg reflecting on his skin, and his lips were still pulled back into a smile. Not horrifically unnatural, not a rictus grin like he had seen the last time, but something more easy.

It was worse, somehow, that Wilbur's smile wasn't unnatural anymore. That it almost looked (ignoring everything else) like it used to. Back when they were kids under Phil's ever expanding wings and they never fought longer than a day, back when Wilbur was clever in a kind way and Techno still knew how to create and not destroy.

Techno couldn't look his dead brother in the eye for longer than a second, and his gaze redirected to the wall. The vines had expanded to cover the entire wall, wrapping around each other and the natural outcroppings of rock. It was slightly reflective, just enough for Techno to see that vines still wrapped around his head. 

It was almost like a crown, threading in between his hair. All Techno could summon up was a vague sense of annoyance. Far too many memories of finding his father's crown (when he was a child) and then later memories of his own crown. All this version had was a replacement for what he really wanted.

That's all the Egg ever offered. That's all the Egg had.

Techno scowled at his reflection just to prove that he still could. The corpse of his brother moved against him, a hand jerkily raised as if he was about to brush through Techno's hair.

"Y'know, I really don't appreciate you using my twin as a ventriloquist doll. Especially when I'm asleep."

**_Darling Prince, how else will you listen to me? I adopt the voice of your adoptive father, you do not listen. I use your twin to communicate, you still do not listen._ **

The Egg hadn't dropped the horrible impression of Phil, and it had begun to grate on his nerves. That wasn't what his dad actually sounded like, right? Phil always had a strange warmth to his voice, and he was much more casual.

Or had time apart begun to color his impression of his father?

A few chords sounded out, jarring in their perfection, and Techno slowly turned his head. Corpsebur had the guitar in his lap, legs crossed underneath him and fingers splayed across the frets.

The vines had uncovered more of him; no longer was the top half of his head completely covered. It hadn't been exactly healed (that implied that there was any living flesh that could be regenerated), but it had been...repaired. The upper half of his face was covered in thinly webbed vines that ran underneath the new flesh simulacrum. 

Techno could see that his brother's hair had started to grow out pink, and something about the slowly fading brown dye hurt. Maybe it was a reminder that towards the end of his brother's life, Wilbur had wanted to look nothing like him. His hair was slightly more matted than Wilbur had ever allowed it to actually get even in Pogtopia. 

Vines still wrapped around his arms, but Techno found it easier to reach out towards Wilbur. The corpse leaned forward, head slightly inclined as Techno's fingers slowly ran through his brother's hair.

"Remember when I used to braid your hair, Wil? Haven't done it since we were kids, 'cause you always kept it short after that time that it got caught on a door and dad had to chop it off because you wouldn't keep tugging on it. You swore off long hair and declared that if you wanted to braid something you could always go to me." A tired, worn through laugh left his throat at the memory.

The corpse of his brother didn't respond, but the vine wrapping around his neck forced his head to incline further. A mockery of a bow, of a show of respect that Wilbur had never actually shown him in life.

"It's not long enough for me to actually braid it, but...I could try." Maybe he had actually gone around the bend, talking with a corpse that was only there because of some sick twisted quasi-deity. 

The corpse did not respond, but he shifted closer. No, he was shifted closer because corpses cannot move on their own. Slowly turned around so that Techno could just reach out and run his fingers through his brother's hair. It hadn't grown since the sixteenth, and Pogtopia had left it hanging a few inches below his shoulders. 

He couldn't remember the last time he had felt hair underneath his fingers, let alone braided any of it. The habit had fallen out of use after his twin died, it reminded him too much of his brother. He could plait, and he could put up, but braiding reminded him too strongly of the other half of his heart. 

Wilbur's body shifted in front of him, shoulders rolled back and form relaxed. Before he could even realize he was doing so, Techno had already begun to separate his brother's hair out into three sections. It was muscle memory, entirely. The Egg's vines had fallen away (for the moment, just for the moment) from his fingers and he had control over them. 

"I missed you, Wil, I can't believe you-" he broke his words off with a harsh laugh, shaking his head slightly. "No. I can believe you begged Phil to kill you. You always did have such- such a fucking obsession with going down with your ship. If you can't have it, no one can, and you just-"

He sighed, shoulders slumping as his fingers paused. "You were selfish, Wilbur Soot, and you left me alone."

The braid wasn't finished, and he didn't get the chance to complete it either. The Egg wrapped its vines around his fingers and pulled them back down by his sides.

Techno wasn't sure when he had stopped fighting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://inaudiblysticky.tumblr.com/post/643511721296805888/read-this-good-ass-fic-and-got-inspired-to-draw
> 
> TOTALLY FORGOT TO PUT THIS IN, BUT LOOK AT THIS ART


End file.
